On Monday, August 24th, President Obama announced a slate of executive actions and private sector commitments related to renewable energy, focused on both industry and consumers. The incentives are part of the White House’s continued emphasis on mitigating climate change impacts. Under the new incentives:
- Homeowners can more easily adopt renewable energy technologies by paying no installation costs upfront, instead paying the costs over time through property taxes.
- The Federal Housing Administration will allow low-income homeowners to save money by using renewable energy and improving energy efficiency, with a goal of installing 300 MW of solar and other renewable energy in affordable housing by 2020.
- The Department of Energy (DOE) will provide guidelines for renewable energy developers to distribute the energy they produce.
- The DOE will also make an additional $1 billion in loan guarantees available for renewable energy projects.
- Eleven innovative solar technology projects will receive $24 million in research funds.
The White House’s initiatives are aimed at continuing the rapid growth of the renewable energy industry. In 2014, the United States brought online as much solar energy every three weeks as it did in all of 2008, and the solar industry added jobs 10 times faster than the rest of the economy.
A full summary of the White House’s initiatives is available here.